Saturday, November 05, 2005

Look out, kid

Look out, kidThey keep it all hid - Bob Dylan

I picked up a book yesterday I'll probably be referring to a fair bit in coming weeks: The Trickster and the Paranormal by George P Hansen. It's a learned study of the mediation the trickster plays between normal and paranormal experience. "Many peculiar aspects can be understood by recourse to the trickster," Hansen writes:

He is relevant to everything from random-number-generator parapsychology experiments to human sacrifice, from out-of-body experiences to ritual clowns eating excrement. Psi does not merely violate categories; rather subversion of categories is its essence. As such, there are limits as to what can be said about it within our typical logical frameworks.

The themes in this book include uncertainty, ambiguity, instability, the void, and the abyss. These are neither patternless, nor without power. Make no mistake, by using rational means this book endeavors to illuminate the irrational, and to demonstrate the severe limitations of logic and rationality. When the supernatural and irrational are banished from consciousness, they are not destroyed, rather, they become exceedingly dangerous.

Hansen stands in the tradition of Jacques Vallee and John Keel with respect to UFO phenomenon, which is eminently tricksterish. For instance, Hansen contends that "when an investigator studies something that can be intentionally deceitful...the usual paradigms of science are inadquate." This school of thought, which recognizes the continuity of contact phenomenon through the ages with entities variously described as fairies, demons, djinn and aliens, is largely at odds with both the skeptics masquerading as debunkers and the true believers in the hard fact of extraterrestrial contact. These two polarities dominate the discourse and present a false dichotomy: either the phenomenon is nothing but hoax and ignorance, or it details "'flesh and blood' humanoids traveling in 'nuts and bolts' flying saucers." Hansen admits that "ufologists are correct in seeing that associations with the supernatural taint their field and make it unattractive to establishment scientists. However, by supressing the paranormal aspects, and removing them from ufology's purview, they misunderstand the nature of the phenomenon and become vulnerable to them."

But Hansen covers much more than UFOs in his 500 pages. He devotes one chapter to conjurers (stage magicians, to distinguish them from practitioners of ritual magic), their often uneasy relationship with paranormal phenomenon, and how they themselves become moments of the trickster archetype.

When he turns to James "the Amazing" Randi, who has done more than anyone to claim the word "skepticism" for debunkers' reductionist, pre-quantum scientific method, Hansen mentions an episode from Randi's past with which I was unfamiliar:

Like many tricksters, some of Randi's antics have caused problems for himself. He was forced to resign from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) because his accusations provoked lawsuits against hte Committee. One of the most publicized involved physicist Eldon Byrd, a friend of Uri Geller. On May 10, 1988 Randi made a presentation for the New York Area Skeptics in Manhattan. After his lecture, during the question and answer period, a member of the audience confronted him with a tape recording, which allegedly had Randi speaking in explicit sexual terms with young men (the recording was not played during the public meeting). I was present and watched as pandemonium almost broke out. Randi did not completely regain his composure. He accused Byrd of distributing the tape and went on to claim that Byrd was a child molester and that he was in prison. He made the same assertion in an interview with Twilight Zone Magazine. This was untrue, and in a jury trial he was found guilty of defaming Byrd.

Randi has never been married, but his sex life has received published comment regarding rumors of pederasty, including from a longtime friend James Moseley. Randi threatened lawsuits over them, but he never carried through.

James Moseley's newsletter, now titled Saucer Smear, is celebrating its 50th year. Moseley is an irritant to both debunkers and true believers, and likely closer to the truth than either camp. (In his personal position statement he writes that he regards aliens as "3 1/2-D, 4-D or 4 1/2-D entities [and] whatever this phenomenon is, it has been a permanent part of the earth's environment at least since the dawn of recorded history, and remains here now.") Mosely posted a link in his September, 2001 issue, which is no longer valid, to both a clip of the tape and its transcript. Moseley describes the tape as consiting of "several short telephone conversations, recorded many years ago from his own phone by the Amusing One himself. Randi appears to be soliciting sex from these several young men. The only dispute is in regard to the circumstances of the recording. We don't want to get back into all that, as Randi's lawyer is still permanently on our mailing list, ever since he tried to sue us several years ago." Two years earlier, Moseley recounted Randi's public explanation, that the tape had been made "under the direction of the police chief of Rumson, New Jersey, to entrap harassing obscene callers." Moseley adds that "many people with knowledge of the situation - including your Smear editor - believe Randi's explanation to be nonsense."

I haven't heard the tape and can make no claim for it. And while Hansen refers to "rumors of pederasty," the age of the "young men" is unknown, so even if they're as damning as Moseley alleges it may be no worse than simple solicitation. And if that were it, I probably wouldn't be writing this. But then I read how "honors and accolades are nothing new to James Randi, who devotes his life to exposing quacks and charlatans throughout the world," and note that it's the first line of Randi's biographical sketch for the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

So the little, sordid story takes on a darker hue, and becomes another question mark dogging those who have crafted a pseudo-science with which to disappear allegations of sexual misconduct and survivors' stories of abuse.

Members of the FMSF are largely individuals who seek to defend themselves from accusations of sexual abuse of children. The FMSF does not attempt to determine whether these members are falsely accused or not. However, everyone who contacts their organization is included in their statistics of "falsely accused". There is little discrimination or skepticism, although members often criticize supporters of survivors of sexual abuse for believing the survivors.

The founding board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation included a number of trickster characters. Such as CIA contractor Dr Martin Orne (an MK-ULTRA official told John Marks, author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, that "we could go to Orne anytime"), and Dr Ralph Underwager and his wife Hollida Wakefield who, in a 1993 interview with Paidika, a Dutch journal of paedophilia, said adult-child sexual relations were "God's will":

PAIDIKA: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. That is usually an essentially negative definition. Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don't think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: "This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."

Paedophiles are too defensive. They go around saying, "You people out there are saying that what I choose is bad, that it's no good. You're putting me in prison, you're doing all these terrible things to me. I have to define my love as being in some way or other illicit." What I think is that paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will." They have the right to make these statements for themselves as personal choices. Now whether or not they can persuade other people they are right is another matter (laughs).

...

Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings.

Wakefield adds:

We can't presume to tell them specific behaviors, but in terms of goals, certainly the goal is that the experience be positive, at the very least not negative, for their partner and partner's family. And nurturing. Even if it were a good relationship with the boy, if the boy was not harmed and perhaps even benefited, it it tore the family of the boy apart, that would be negative.

It would be nice if someone could get some kind of big research grant to do a longitudinal study of, let's say, a hundred twelve year old boys in relationships with loving paedophiles. Whoever was doing the study would have to follow that at five year intervals for twenty years. This is impossible in the U. S. right now. We're talking a long time in the future.

When the interview came to light in the US, Underwager resigned from the board. In a brief article, the FMSF newsletter announced that "Dr Underwager believes that parts of this interview could be misinterpreted to mean that on occasion he might be supportive of pedophilia when he definitely is not." Hollida Wakefield remained a board member.

A year before the Paidika interview, the February 29, 1992 issue of the FMSF newsletter included an article by co-founder Pamela Freyd entitled "How Do We Know We are Not Representing Paedophiles." Freyd just knew, because "we are a good-looking bunch of people, greying hair, well dressed, healthy, smiling; just about every person who has attended is someone you would surely find interesting and want to count as a friend."

The Freyd story is well know, and well-told by Page here. Dr Jennifer Freyd, then a psychologist at Stanford University, privately confronted her father Peter with recovered memories of abuse. Peter told people she was brain damaged. Mother Pamela enacted the nuclear option, publicly disparaging her daughter's private life and professional standing. "She also," writes Page, "in an interesting foreshadowing of future FMSF members’ positions on child abuse, ridiculed those who were opposed to child sexual abuse as 'politically correct' and therefore, perhaps, merely trendy."

Page adds that, "interestingly, Dr. Freyd’s memories were supported by other family members." In a letter addressed to WGBH and read by Gloria Steinem at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in April, 1995, William Freyd - Peter's brother and Jennifer's uncle - wrote that

...there’s no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse.... The false memory syndrome foundaton is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There’s no such thing as a false memory syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a foundation. Neither Peter nor Pam have any significant mental health expertise.Dr Jennifer Freyd, and Betrayal Trauma:

The Freyds remain the Foundation's executive directors. Their daughter is a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and author of Trauma and Cognitive Science and Betrayal Trauma (subtitled "The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse"). Jennifer Freyd defines Betrayal Trauma Theory as "the degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted needed other will influence the way in which that event is processed and remembered."

"At times I am flabbergasted that my memory is considered ‘false’", says Jennifer, "and my alcoholic father’s memory is considered rational and sane."

I guess it's like False Memory Syndrome Foundation board member James Randi says: "People are suckers for false claims."

1158 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Whether accidentally or by design the False Memory 'movement' puts into place a nice bit of orwellianism into the modern experience: if, after all, you cannot believe your memories, what can you believe?

You really need to pull the quote from Sin City to the effect that once you get people disbelieving themself you have them by the balls into the frontispiece or end of this artcle to drive home the broader implications of FMS gaining widespread acknowledgment -- that it's being promoted by apparent pederasts is bad enough, but on the fascist chessboard I'd say FMS is more rook than pawn.

jennifer freyd's book is excellent. i read it when i was dealing with my own incest trauma.

only after i read it did i learn about her personal story. her parents are scum.

fms' primary goal isn't to defend individual perpetrators so much as to discredit people who were ritually abused by the government cults or the CIA when their memories start returning as their programming breaks up. that's the political component.

hi jeff...this link was posted yesterday at SurfingTheApocalypse.com,I thought it was a relevant addition to this blog..

http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story307.htm

quote..Elizabeth Loftus, the much-acclaimed psychologist at the University of California-Irvine who successfully debunked the theory of repressed memory, said television "gives visual plausibility to an abduction explanation" for any number of things -- nightmares, moles on our skin, loneliness, sexual abnormalities. People simply want to understand why they are experiencing some abnormal, frightening or confusing things

..and..Susan Clancy, a psychologist at Harvard University, agreed. In her just-published book, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens, Clancy postulates that increased claims of abduction are "false memories," which are not the same as lies. They are created explanations, maybe even a part "of a larger spiritual quest," she said. "They're looking for answers to something bigger. They are looking for a meaning they don't get from science."

..Seems Barney Hills alien sketches were inspired by an episode of The Outer Limits aired the same week he didn't get abducted..

I also wanted to ask you a question about something else..

There is a website that is linked to at STA.com,of dubious quality..perhaps you have heard of someone called 'Scorcha Faal'?I have no faith in their claims,but my eye was drawn to one recently posted claim....That the mass burning of B.S.E.cattle in the U.K. in 2001 was actually a pagan burnt offering..an occult ritual prior to the actions of 911 and beyond..the story goes on to say that similar B.S.E.cow burning by South American countries is the same ritual sacrifice,and the USA is about to be attacked by these countries..Scorchaa Fall is routinely scourned,and I'm not a fan myself..but I just wondered if you had come across this 'cattle burning as burnt offering' story before?Have mass burnings preceded other wars?were there similar epidemics before vietnam,korea or the 2 world wars?I would have posted the link to surfing the apocalypse,but the story has been pulled..I've just remembered that Scorcha has threatened legal action for posting her stories..so maybe you should be careful if you want to quote her at all..google the name..although I think you are probably aware of her work..

The memories that Jennifer Freyd refers to and are the subject of attacks from the FMS are not memories as they are commonly known. They are ,in fact, abreactions aka traumatic memories and are a completely different kettle of fish.

Elizabeth Loftus' researches may be valid for ordinary memories but have NO relevance to traumatic memories or Abreations. It is hard to believe that she would not be aware of this and is therefore knowingly comparing oranges with apples, which is certainly the case.

Abreations (a term coined by Sigmund Freud) is where the mind relives a previous experience complete with some or all of the following: sound; vision; smells and physical sensations such as pain. These abreactions affect heart rate, blood pressure, adrenal glands, shin temperature and a myriad of other physical reactions which CANNOT be faked by even top actors. Tests have been done to prove this.On top of this, there is a particular brain activity that goes with abreation/traumatic memory recall that can be monitored on medical equipment. (I forget the name of it for the moment) Again it can't be duplicated any other way.

So to claim these "memories" are false is eqivalent to holding to a Flat Earth reality.

If you were to call the FMSF the False Abreation Syndrome Foundation (which is more accurate), you would be engaging in an oxymoron (which is what they are).Somebody should bring a class action against these people because my reading of the situation is that they are very vulnerable legally.

The use of Syndrome in their title and in their complaints is another lie. A Syndrome is a medical condition that has a specific collection of symptoms (which may not all apply) whhich has been formulated by one or more medical authorities.No such formulation or definition has been made. Medically, there IS no False Memory Syndrome. THIS is quackery.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Security agencies have put up a bunch of at risk paedophiles to do their dirty work for them and use them as a cutout when the legal shit hits the fan.Any Philadelphia Lawyers out there?

I am constantly amazed by the subjects discussed in this blog. Hats off to you Jeff. I've only been coming here for 2 weeks, but I feel like I've been here for years. Keep up the great work!

I would like to invite everyone to come see my new blog. scotrugbysscrum here at blogspot. I've already posted my first rant, so I hope you come check it out.I can only hope to do half as good a job as Jeff has done with his blog.

Sometimes the least powerful members of society see and know the truth of "life" as it really is, compared to those who rank up enough on the food chain who feel that they are part of the in crowd and "in the know".

Here is a link to one of my fellow native american's experiences and views on Nazis and occultism and alien abductees. And how they relate to our government. Oh, it's out there, too strange to believe. Truth?????http://www.wovoca.com/controversies-black-science-black-operations.htm

Great post. I was wondering whether you were going to deal with the FMSF child abusers at some point. When I first read about that madness in 2002, I was shocked to read that anyone would be allowed to do that in the United States. Ah, little did I know...Jim's right, someone should sue.

Thanks, Anon. at 2:45, for that thread re wovoca. It confirms much of what I suspected about our beloved government and the Rapture and UFO folks. I had been told the same by another independent source.

Did anyone see last Friday's Dateline show wherein they caught the Rabbi, the doctor, and others showing up for a pedophile fest? It was, finally, good journalism.

While the "False Memory Syndrome: A False Construct" paper ripped open the self-serving motivations of the members of False Syndrome Memory Gang, nothing like real science to combat the wishful thinking of the guilty, there's a rather sad aspect to the Freyd case no one's mentioned. The obvious academic envy of the mother towards her daughter.

"Pamela Freyd, on her part, took her daughter’s private life public in an article (published as a book chapter and a journal article) that disparaged Dr. Freyd’s personal life and compared Dr. Freyd’s successful professional career unfavorably to her own." And, the unbelievable Jane Doe papers disseminated during Jennifer's year to gain tenure. Is this a continuation of the "My dog's better than your dog" academic fight between psychatrists versus psychologists? Or, is it simply an unresolved Electra complex of the mother? Is the mother displaying a sexual jealousy towards her daughter's capacity to arouse a "homoerotic" husband, wherein she failed?

Forgetting the veracity of the case for a moment (I believe the daughter), is the mother's actions typical of a loving mother? What support or caring has she demonstrated towards her own child? No Mother Of The Year awards here.

"I can add that it's really quite easy to change people's memories on a day-to-day basis without any formal training. I'm sure you've seen it done.

5:05 PM

Zero Haven, you haven't been paying attention, have you?These aren't ordinary memories we're talking about. I think you owe it to yourself and the victims who have suffered to read up a little on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociation.

While on the subject, how often do you hear of someone involved in an auto accident who can't remember the accident?It's a common "repressed memory" yet it doesn't attract howls of protest.Remember Princess Diana's bodyguard who had no memory of hteir car crash. It was widely accepted without comment. Why? Because we all know it happens.

A correction to my previous posts, I misspelt "AbreaCtion", apologies.Jim

"The Freyd story is well know, and well-told by Page here. Dr Jennifer Freyd, then a psychologist at Stanford University, privately confronted her father Peter with recovered memories of abuse."

Yikes. Get your facts straight. Jennifer's parents were visiting her in Eugene when she dropped the bomb on them that she had "remembered" being abused as a child. Needless to say, they were shocked and dismayed at the way she told them - completely unexpectedly on a Christmas visit.

Was JJF abused as a child? I don't know. Was it abusive of her to launch a career change on her "recovered memories?" Absolutely.

Anon at 1:45pm-- I concur and I have wondered the same thing. Maybe Jeff is a genius, but these posts must take hours and hours to construct. If this was his full-time job, that would be one thing, but as it is, I wonder how he does it.

Back in the 1990s when I was leading the Austin Abduction Support Group / Austin Ufo Forum and Study Group* I contacted the FMSF and began receiving their newsletter. I was aware of the maleability of memory and knew of such techniques as NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) so I wanted to follow what the "skeptics" were saying. Needless to say, when I discovered the true history and background of those on the FMSF board of directors I was horrified and my worldview began spinning out of control. I still flip-flop back and forth on the issues of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the Pedophocracy explicated by THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP etc.

In 1999 I visited some friends of mine out in California. Fewer than 15 minutes off the plane and my kook friend who had picked me up popped a cassette into his car stereo and suddenly I was hearing the voice of James 'the unamusing' Randi seemingly soliciting some young male phone caller. I've heard both sides of the story on this tape and just like the SRA milieu, can not come to any definitive conclusion.

Interestingly enough, Jeff mentions and links to the SAUCER SMEAR issue that cites the tape controversy and which also advertises the ill-fated NUFOC** event that I organized that was cancelled due to the 911 New World Odor event.

Apropos to talk of the Trickster Archetype and Ufology ... Moseley is THE quintessential uFOOLogical Trickster (with Terence McKenna being runner up - tho he was less aligned with the UFO field than with the psychedelics counter culture).

Finally, my Anomaly Archives lending library*** recently received donations from the personal collection of Dennis Stacy, former editor of the MUFON UFO Journal and co-editor of The Anomalist and the new Anomalist Books press****. Among the many rare UFO mags and personal correspondance are copies of the FMSF newsletter and the Texas Monthly article about Austin's own Satanic Ritual Abuse day-care case "The Innocent and the Damned", Texas Monthly, April 1994. I'm only half-way thru reading this article but have already experienced the flip-flop phenomena I mentioned above; half the time I can't believe these people were convicted on such flimsy evidence, and the other half the time it seems likely that it must be real. I had forgotten that this is one of the few cases I am aware of in which police officers were also indicted. According to the article, Fran and Dan Keller were up for parole last year.

I second Elfis's comments and Jeff's -- when we enter this zone, the trickster's hoofprints are everywhere.

As in Ufology, the "truth" is buried under conflicting, paradoxical layers, and sorting through it all is apt to cause the "flipping" Elfis describes. It's a typical symptom of someone who is truly paying attention to the data -- one reason I distrust easy answers from both sides.

Just because some recovered memories are real, doesn't mean they all are. True skepticism, as opposed to rigid "belief," is the key to getting to the core of truth.

I hope to post more on the Hosanna Church case soon -- one of the first real "smoking gun" cases of ritual abuse. I think that particular case is being quietly buried, and that is appalling.

As a side note to those hinting that Jeff Wells is a "writer-by-committee" -- PuhLEASE. Jeff posts prodigiously, but I know many other "hobbyist" bloggers whose output dwarfs his. His content is always well-thought-out and his keen intellect is readily apparent. But producing this blog is by no means impossible for one individual. And his style is clearly the style of one person.

If you are looking for the trickster, take a good look at Jennifer Freyd. She was bored to tears with her boring research and used her "recovered" memory of abuse to jumpstart her career. She clearly suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder and thrives on the chaos she has created.

She has deprived her three children ANY contact with their grandparents, with ABSOLUTELY NO QUALMS.

I know you are very aware of how easily the trickster engages in shapeshifting. I urge to to spend at least 15 seconds considering the possibility that Jennifer is the trickster here, not her parents.

James Randi, in addition to just being irritating, always did seem a little flamboyant to me.

I too have always been frustrated by the false dichotomy, the two poles of closed-minded "skeptical" denial and totally naive credulity. People ought to know better, but then, this is a post-Christian society and nobody believes those old Bible stories about "that old serpent, Satan the devil, who deceives the whole world." And naturally, nobody believes that Satan "appears as an angel of light," as the apostle Paul wrote. Since deception is not one of the choices, we end up embracing a false choice.

And speaking of the devil appearing as an angel, let's talk about "Christian" ministries which, wittingly or unwittingly, provide cover for the bad guys. One example I've witnessed lately is this one, which, despite its professed mission of reaching out to occultists, has a hard and fast policy of complete and total denial and instant censoring of all references to ritual abuse/sacrifice, and related subjects. I've seen individuals who posted about such topics censored and booted out faster than you could say "Beelzebub." Usually the moderators rehearse the standard boilerplate denials straight out of the FMSF handbook. They cite 15-year-old articles written by pro-FMSF religious organizations as "proof" that it's all just "satanic panic." Whether they know it or not, they are serving as accomplices to evil under the banner of old-time religion.

Isn’t it funny how people misinterpret pretty clear and easy to understand comments?

The comments tried to address the anomalous quality of this blog and suggested the possibilities that either Jeff is a "genius" or "getting help".

I don't see anything written that the blog is being "writer-by-commitee".

Jeff apparently does this part-time and has a wife and is a new father. As a father of young ones I can attest to the time demands Jeff's life must be extreme outside of his blogging efforts. Maybe some no-life-geek living in his parent's basement could put in the hours involved, but I'm a bit of a loss to see how Jeff does it!

He He maybe his wife could tell us what Jeff’s blog day looks like?

So in the “genius” case maybe he simply is a very sharp guy who can pound through a ton of material and write an excellent summary of his daily research along with an appropriate custom graphic in three or fours hours of recreation time each day. Not impossible I guess. I sure know I couldn’t do it.

Supporting this it is agreed that the writing style is certainly that of one author.

The “getting help” case could mean many things. It could mean that his wife is reading and researching for him. Or it could mean that this is essentially his full time job and he has some benefactor that is providing material support for him. Or it could mean he has some other casual researchers that are digging into stories and content (note this could be his readership as per the bulletin board providing ideas!)

I agree with the statement that this blog is anomalous in its quality and in the volume of its output. As with any anomaly think it only prudent to come up with some mechanisms to understand it.

How does Jeff do it? Maybe it's got something to do with those 100 experimental AIDS monkeys he rescued, and that huge UPS delivery of keyboards to his apartment...(just kidding, Jeff)

*********

"When the supernatural and irrational are banished from consciousness, they are not destroyed, rather, they become exceedingly dangerous."-George Hanson

Shades of Carl Jung and the danger of stress within the collective unconscious...

Yes, the trickster Harlequin jumps down from the stage to snatch a child from the audience... the child is terrified, the crowd is entertained... and the bill collector is appeased for a time- after all, there is no brighter flash of energy in the flux than the terror of a child.

"Val is hungry... we must go to Val- he calls us..."

The subtle manipulation of the collective psyche through fear, lies, and stagecraft is neat-o, but the manipulation of physical reality is where the real kicks are...

Just don't forget to pay the piper.I think these old farts have a grand old time mucking about with contagion and simpatico, but forget that like attracts like, and eventually suffocate in the feedback ...

"Once you discover that space doesn't matter, or that time can be travelled through at will so that time doesn't matter, and that matter can be moved by consciousiness so that matter doesn't matter - well, you can't go home again."-Duane Elgin